Online Travel: Easier to Navigate - Industry Overview

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Dec, 1999 by Lynn Woods

But even with smoother site links, finding the best deal is a challenge.

Travel bargains on the Internet are a dime a dozen--and that's about all they're worth if you can't use them. What good is a $179 round-trip airfare to, say, Denver if you can't afford to leave on two days' notice? And how convenient is any cheap flight if you have to troll another dozen or so Web sites to find a discounted hotel room and rental car?

Many travel suppliers initially used the Web to get rid of unsold inventory, so they weren't necessarily in sync with what travelers wanted to buy. But now they're starting to pay more attention to how consumers actually purchase travel services.

As a result, it's getting a lot easier to plan a trip using the Internet. There are more links among airline, hotel and car-rental-company sites. One-stop travel supersites, such as Expedia and Travelocity, let you select not only airfares and hotel rooms but also tour packages and cruises.

But making reservations online is still not a sure thing. Some Web sites are little more than online travel brochures that require you to call an "800" number or a travel agent to make a reservation. Royal Caribbean (www.rccl.com), for example, allows you to pick a destination, a ship and a date, and even quotes prices by cabin. But to book a cruise you have to click on "find a travel agent," enter your zip code and call the agency whose name comes up. (Cruise lines, in particular, are leery of alienating travel agencies, which sell most of their business.)

Assuming that time is money for most Web shoppers, we visited a number of travel sites to see how easy it is not only to find a good value but also to plan and book a trip. Here's a rundown of the most traveler-friendly sites.

E-fares you can use

Weekly e-mail subscription services usually post fare deals on Wednesday for travel the following Saturday. But a few carriers now offer Web specials that allow for planning further in advance and carry fewer restrictions. Best of the bunch was Southwest Airlines (www.southwest.com), which usually posts fares on Tuesdays for travel starting three weeks later. American Airlines' Net SAAver bargains (www.aa.com) let you plan a week and a half in advance.

Continental Airlines (www.continental.com) gets high marks for providing hotel and car-rental deals on its site. After selecting a $149 round-trip weekend fare from Newark to Nashville, for example, we could also book a compact rental car from Alamo for $19 per day and accommodations at the Holiday Inn Nashville Brentwood for $71 per night.

At the Alaska Airlines site (www.alaskaair.com), the terms seemed to change periodically. When we first visited the site, it was posting discounted fares for travel beginning in a couple of weeks. But when we rechecked later, the lead time was much shorter.

Like Continental, United Airlines (www.ual.com) offers hotel and car-rental deals on its site. But the prices seemed high, and to get the cheapest fares you had to leave the Saturday after fares were posted--and sometimes not until evening.

Some discounters' sites were less impressive than those of the airlines. When we finally got through to Mr. Cheap's (www.mrcheaps.com), its $497 roundtrip fare between New York and Seattle was almost $50 more than the fare available on other sites. Cheap Tickets (www.cheaptickets.com) requires you to key in your credit card number and register before doing a trial run.

Car-rental runarounds

All the major car-rental companies offer online booking, and several sites promote special Internet-only rates. But the special rates are often less attractive than they appear.

Alamo (www.goalamo.com), for example, offers 20% off rentals reserved online. But even with that perk, the lowest daily rate for a compact in Nashville was $46 a day, more than twice the $19 available through Continental's site. Avis (www.avis.com) offers a 10% discount on Internet bookings. But neither Alamo nor Avis spells out that its discount has already been applied to the listed rates, creating confusion.

Budget's special "Webrates" (www.drivebudget.com) are especially restrictive. Its weekend promotions, for example, extend from Thursday to noon on Monday, making them difficult to coordinate with airfare deals that end on Tuesday.

For rentals booked through its site, Hertz (www.hertz.com) is offering a $20 discount on cars picked up by December 15. But the discount applies only to rentals that last a minimum of five days, including a Saturday night.

In general, you still have to search hard for rental-car deals because rates vary so widely. The daily rate for a compact car in Nashville, for example, ranged from $19 at Continental's site to $34 at Avis's and $46 at Alamo's. The best value: $28 per day from Dollar (www.dollar.com), which threw in a free upgrade to an intermediate model.

Hotels: More competitive

The best news for guests is that rate competition will get hotter as wholesalers--groups that buy up blocks of rooms at a discounted rate or have special agreements with hotel chains --post their prices on the Web. Thor 24 (www.thor24.com)--a consortium of 15,000 travel agencies that has negotiated preferred rates with hotels--lists both the standard rate and the group's negotiated rate for a slew of hotels in each major city. Recently, for instance, the site posted a price of $190 a night for the Alexis Hotel, a four-star landmark in downtown Seattle, compared with $210 to $220 on the hotel's own site.